The 24-year-old from West Point is working at his first full-time job and, as a single guy, has money to spend on clothes - about $300 to $400 a month - or stereo equipment, like $950 recently for a car stereo system.

"I'm into a lot of electronics like speakers and amplifiers," said the graphics printing assistant during a recent shopping spree in a downtown Atlanta mall. "With me and my friends, now that we're working, we're making our own money to spend on shopping."

But for black Georgia residents, the increase in disposable income is not limited to young men like Davis, who along with the state's other minority groups are wielding more money in the market.

One out of every $5 spent on purchases in Georgia comes from black consumers, making the state the fourth largest in that market nationwide, according to an annual study released Wednesday by the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth.

The report measures buying power, or a person's total income available to spend on goods and services after taxes, and shows a more than doubling of that money among the state's blacks, Hispanics, Asians and American Indians since the center first began looking at the information in 1990.

In the Athens metro area, the buying power for blacks has increased 145 percent since the study started, reaching $543 million this year. The Hispanic community in the area has seen its disposable income skyrocket by 720 percent to $168 million.

"There's definitely been a big increase in the last two years," said Larry McKinney, president of the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce. "We've got quite a number of Latino business members in the chamber."

In January, the 102-year-old chamber will also seat its first Hispanic to the board chairman position, Eduardo Noriega.

But the influx of new Hispanic consumers still has some local businesses looking for ways to reach the fast-growing ethnic market.

"The business community recognizes the diversity that's in the Athens area, but they're not quite sure how to approach it and market to it," McKinney said.

Statewide, the booming Hispanic population has made Georgia the 10th largest market for the ethic group in the country.

Though the report's tracking period since 1990 includes two mild recessions and the current soft economy, the overall expansion during the years has influenced the growth in minority buying power, said Jeff Humphreys, director of the Selig Center.

"That's also created opportunity for those who didn't have, for example, inherited wealth, that weren't already part of the haves," he said. "Some of it is just closing the gap as far as per capita income."

Humphreys also attributed population growth and an increase in minority business owners to the rise in buying power.

He said that advertisers have begun to take notice and tailor their messages to specific groups to capture more of the growing disposable income.

"All the anecdotal evidence suggests that a portion of the marketing budget is shifting toward niche marketing and particularly toward niche marketing to Hispanics and African-Americans," he said.

While the study estimates that minorities will continue to grow their after-tax money, not everyone thinks the cash will flow into stores and restaurants.

"The only thing I'm interested in people doing with their disposable income is investing," said Janice White Sikes, a black librarian in Atlanta who has successfully taught her children to sink extra money into retirement savings and real estate. "I think that you see the bling-bling, but you don't see people who are investing. I think ethnic groups are much more aware of investing than we think they are."